In addition, the good people at Pub Magazine like our summer patio! See their quarterly issue for the deets.

We should note that, if you haven't come in for a pint in the last little bit, we're sure to have something new and exciting for you to try. And if you're peckish, why not grab a bite while you're here? The cheese pennies are to die for; so you'd better get in quick before the End of the World next month!

On Sat, Sep 15th at 1pm the community will rally to help save Postal Station “K”, the site of Montgomery’s Tavern, where the Rebellion of 1837 was launched.
Come out to sign the petition, pick up an 11”x17” Save Station “K” poster, and hear musical performances.

The Toronto Crown corporation is looking to sell the post office that sits on the historical land that once held Montgomery's Tavern—where the Rebellion of 1837 began in December of that year.

As Globe and Mail columist Jane Switzer explains:

Although the location was designated a National Historic Site in 1925 (protecting a five-metre radius around the flagstaff and a commemorative plaque on its base), the building has few safeguards under the law. The post office is listed as historic by the City of Toronto, but because federally owned buildings are excluded from the Ontario Heritage Act, it has no protective designation. [full article]

If, for some reason, the news has passed you by, 2012 is bicentennial of the War of 1812. And while we don't have a Twitter account (who has the time?—actually we do!), we've had some fine Rebulars™ inform us of some interesting Thwippers who have been reliving the war:

Today was not one of my better days – the weather was dreary, I heard a man bastardize “Hey Jude” on the bagpipes, I got yelled at on the phone by more than one person and I was going home to an empty house. Because of all this I thought to myself, “Why go home, open an empty fridge and face more defeat?” Instead, I went to The Rebel House for their Ole Mackie’s Back – or their take on Macaroni and Cheese.

This is a great pub. It has three levels but is tight and cozy like a British pub. There is a patio in the back which resembles someone’s deck – homey and comfy. They are all about the micro-brews here – they have about 20 different beers on tap and they are all from microbreweries except one – Guinness. My server suggested the perfect beer for me – Black Oak Pale Ale. He started by asking if I wanted an ale or a lager, heavy or light, light or dark. It was a great beer and he knew his beer. Trust beer suggestions from guys who are in their 30s, with tattoos rather than girls who look 16. Just from my beer experience I know I want to come here again and the best part about it – it is about a 15 minute walk north of my work along Yonge Street.

Ole Mackie’s Back – Macaroni and cheese casserole with plum tomatoes, green onion and Cheddar cream sauce, served with home baked cornbread and house salad and/or kettle fries. I love that this is what this Macaroni and Cheese is called. Anything that conjures up ideas of Frank Sinatra is a great way to start off a dish. This did not use elbow pasta but tubes more similar to, but not actually, penne. Some of the pasta was oven baked crunchy which made me think this serving comes from a larger casserole that is baked earlier in the day and then reheated when ordered. This tomatoes were fresh and sweet and retained their crunch. This had a cheddar cream sauce which makes me liken this more to a casserole rather than a true Mac and Cheese – which is ok but be aware of what you are getting into. I did like this but since I am looking for an equivalent of my mother’s Mac and Cheese, I am not yet satisfied.

Corn bread is not my thing and I had established this when we went for Dishcrawl and we had the cornmeal empanada. I thought, “Hey this is actual corn bread and it has green onion in it and has been toasted on the grill.” Nope – this did not help. Corn bread is not me. Thank God I wasn’t a pioneer…

The kettle chips however, were great. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside and the perfect amount of friedness that doesn’t make you forget that you are eating real potatoes.

This place is low key, homey, serves great food and lots of beer. Doesn’t get much better than that. I think next time I go I want to try the baked beans (Slow-cooked the traditional way with molasses, maple syrup, apples and beer) or the pickled beets. I am really looking forward to discovering the Rosedale/Summerhill area since it’s about halfway between home and work (ok, a little closer to work) and has a huge array of restaurants, cafes, bars and bakeries. And this was a great first introduction to the neighbourhood that will definitely bring me back.

REBEL EDITOR'S NOTE: "Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. Introduced in that production by Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya. The song became a popular standard after the 1959 recording by Bobby Darin.

Recorded: December 19, 1958
Released: August 1959
The #5 song of the 1955-59 Rock Era
Was #1 for 9 weeks in 1959
14th most popular single in Billboards HOT 100 History
Bobby’s first (and only) number one song
Won the Grammy for “Record of the Year” in 1959

“I think I’m going to plant some hop vines on my farm this year, for fun,” announces Jamie Kennedy, as three fellow chefs perk up their ears. Karen Vaz of the Rebel House, John Robertson of The Big Carrot and Av Atikian of Jam Café — locavores all, after Kennedy’s own heart — have joined him around a table at his own Gilead Café, and they’re intrigued.

Kennedy isn’t proposing anything new — as he notes, Prince Edward County had “huge beer production” during the “Barley Days” of the late 19th century. When the U.S. export market dried up, local demand wasn’t sufficient; soon drinkers were buying brews from farther afield.

“Sometimes,” Robertson says, “you have to do the wrong thing to know what the right thing is.” For these chefs, an example of “the right thing” would be the fifth annual Brewers Plate on April 18, which will find them (and eight other chefs) teaming with southern Ontario brewers to pair craft beer and local food.

Kennedy is the event’s patron. In between preparing plates for Gilead’s lunchtime diners, including the chefs (“It feels weird to have another chef cook for you,” notes Robertson, but he’s not complaining about his whitefish éclair sandwich), he offers a historical take on local food and drink.

Pointing to the wall of colourful preserves on shelves behind him, he says, “All of this is part of the southern Ontario story, over 100 years old. I’m just attaching a renewed importance to it — you buy things in quantity when they’re cheap and beautiful, and you preserve them.”

It’s always tempting for restaurants to buy cheaper ingredients from farther afield, especially out of season; the same goes for heavily marketed industrial beer brewed with inexpensive, flavour-reducing adjuncts. Vaz notes that at the Rebel House, where she has cooked for 10 years, big-company representatives are continually “trying to get us to stray from the path that we’re on.” Over a bottle of Mill Street Organic lager, she says straying has never been an issue: Her Kenyan-immigrant parents in Etobicoke raised her to shun anything, in her life and her career, that smacks of processed food.

Few chefs can claim such a pedigree — Atikian spent his first 20-odd years cooking mainly in “big places that don’t give a damn about anything except profit,” before an “epiphany” 10 years ago reconnected him to memories of his parents’ garden in Scarborough. Now he serves local food at the cozy Jam, with a growing craft beer list. Robertson had his own epiphany — or “mushroom moment,” smirks Vaz — a dozen years back after deciding morels he’d cooked on a friend’s farm were “probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Together, the chefs hope to introduce younger people to the joys of local food — the Brewers Plate’s proceeds go to the charity Green Thumbs Growing Kids, which encourages students to grow and harvest edible gardens in school. Adults attending the event will be encouraged to discover new tastes — with wide eyes, Atikian describes the Nickel Brook beers he’s cooking with as “very intense!”

Kennedy, though softer-spoken, is convincingly evangelical. The Brewers Plate, he says, is a “microcosm” of the city’s local food and beer movements, which are “largely influential for the rest of the country. You look to Toronto for what’s hip, but this is exploring a new model. It’s far-reaching; it’s not just trendy.”